Outbreak: The New Nightmare v7.0 Released! Local Co-op Added! (Experimental)
The Nightmare never ends. Nearly three years after Outbreak: The New Nightmare released on Steam Early Access, major new features are still being added! Outbreak: The New Nightmare 7.0 has been released. It includes the following enhancements:
Local 2-player co-op is now available. Access it via the Local Game menu (replacing the Single-player menu). You can customize the controls for both players in the Options -> Controls menu. See this post for details.NOTE: Local co-op is experimental and you may encounter bugs or other unforeseen issues. PLEASE report these to me on the forums or via the official Discord instance so I can address them. Local co-op is DEMANDING on your machine when on high quality levels as it's rendering everything twice. If you experience framerate issues, lower your graphics settings and try it again.
Numerous performance improvements across the game. Using a new garbage collector which should reduce the amount of hitching experienced during gameplay on mid to lower-end hardware. You should also see minor framerate improvements across the board in single-player and online co-op.
Upgraded the underlying engine to the latest version. Although this doesn't seem like a major note, this was actually extremely hard to do due to the age of the codebase, as well as how I architected it originally. Successfully updating the engine will allow me to keep pushing forward on new features and fixes, as well as update the console versions and target new consoles in the future!
Local co-op is coming...
Hey Survivors!
Well, it's been a while. But there has been a lot underway behind on the scenes on the Outbreak series since the launch of Outbreak: Epidemic on Xbox One and Steam!
One of the most demanded features across all of the co-op titles in the series is local co-op. I'm happy to announce it's in active development and nearing completion on PC (and then will be coming to consoles in some form in the future) for Outbreak: The New Nightmare. I'll be looking into other titles in the series in the future to see what can happen there, but that will be a discussion for another time. Although Outbreak: The New Nightmare was a co-op title from day one, online multiplayer and local co-op are two very different beasts. I've found a way to balance the requirements and add proper support, as well as upgrade the underlying engine to the latest version. This local co-op is only possible due to the massive performance upgrades I was able to achieve in the last round of major patching. That being said, you will need a beefy rig to run local co-op on fully maxed out settings and high resolution.
So let's talk about it!
Local Co-op Overview
Local co-op in Outbreak: The New Nightmare covers all game modes, characters and functionality. The main player and your partner are equal in terms of abilities and the opportunity to level up. You'll be using characters from the master Steam account of the owner of the title, but each character will continue to level up independently and you can apply perks just as you can online or in single-player. Local co-op is accessible via the "Local Game" menu (replacing the Single-player menu). This menu still allows you to launch offline single-player games, but now there is a toggle to enable co-op and pick the character of your local co-op player. You can also fully customize your keyboard, mouse and gameplay controls for both players in the options menu. When you're in-game in local co-op, you'll get an EXP bar for each player and you can track leveling up through that. You can also see both people's inventories at the same time through the lobby screen - although for now only one player can use their inventory at a time. In future updates, I hope to continue to improve this, but the UI code for The New Nightmare is old and wasn't written with extensibility like this in mind. I'm really excited for this feature to be on the way. I've definitely heard the community feedback and I'm very excited to get it into both PC and console versions as soon as it's possible.
Stay tuned for updates! It's coming soon!
As always, good luck surviving!
Outbreak: Epidemic is now fully available on Steam!
Check out the latest major content update adding numerous new scenarios, features, fixes and more across the title. Now out of Early Access and fully available!
Outbreak: The New Nightmare v6.2.0 Released!
Outbreak: The New Nightmare v6.2.0 has been released! This update includes:
Adjusting lighting on the Forest location to improve visibility with high brightness.
Fixing an issue where the EPidemic scenario's game logic got messed up during a performance patch.
Come chat with us about the Outbreak games, find co-op buddies and share your rankings! The Outbreak Discord is the best way to get support from the developer of the series and to hear the latest information on new expansions!
Outbreak: The New Nightmare v6.0.0 Released!
Outbreak: The New Nightmare v6.0.0 has been released! This major update includes:
Significant improvement to load times across the game.
Significant improvement to runtime framerates across the game, especially in the City and Forest locations.
Typical runtime memory usage during gameplay significantly reduced.
Random enemy spawn on Normal difficulty in Campaign Mode significantly reduced.
Wow, it's been a while since we've talked about Outbreak: The New Nightmare. Since The New Nightmare left Early Access in January 2018, it's been a whirlwind of development on patches for it and new titles. And then... things went a bit quiet.
Well, I've been poking around the old codebase now that I've learned quite a bit on The Nightmare Chronicles, Lost Hope and Epidemic. And... I think we can make some improvements now.
I'll keep details light as it's still a WIP, but I'm starting to prepare some updates for the Xbox One and PC version to help improve framerate, load times and address some other issues across the game.
Stay tuned. I'll have some news in the next week or so!
